Mechanical and magnetic snap fasteners are commonly used to attach one material to another in articles such as clothing, bags, purses, shoes, and the like. Mechanical snap fasteners typically consist of a male component comprising a cylindrial stud having an enlarged tip and a female component comprising a socket having a retaining feature which engages with the enlarged tip of the stud. The male and female components are attached to different materials desired to be attached to one another.
In a typical magnetic snap fastener, a female component with a magnet is attached to one material and a male component attracted to the magnet is attached to another material. The two components are magnetically attracted to each other and releasably fasten the materials together.
Conventional fasteners, however, do not provide any resistance to the rotation of one component relative to the other, or one material relative to the other, as this functionality is not always required. There are circumstances, however, in which it is desired that the fastener components or materials to be fastened are held in a particular rotational relationship to one another when fastened. Conventionally, such rotational fixation has been achieved by providing two or more fasteners spaced apart on the materials to be fastened. However, such a solution is costly because it requires more than one fastener set and is not suited to a situation in which a limited amount of space on a material is available for fastening components.
Thus, there is a need for a compact, cost effective fastener for releasably fixing materials together in a rotationally restrained manner.